Normally you may feel that your massage therapy business is doing well and has a good number of clients. Even so there are frequent times in our massage therapy business life when client numbers could be better and we get that familiar sense that our wonderfully fulfilling massage therapy business could work a lot better.

You’ve heard me talking about how your thinking can change your massage therapy experience, and business. But how is this done? How can you turn around a massage therapy business from ok to doing well?

For most massage therapists it simply isn’t that easy. The fact of the matter is that we all have times when clients don’t come as we’d like them to and there is room for improvement. When examine our massage therapy businesses, we can really see that our client numbers are not as high and even getting our most regular clients to refer friends can feel like a battle. In this case, what is needed is some techniques to combat this and cut of falling client numbers. And all massage therapy businesses need this; not just the starting up ones.

In this case what we need to do to bring client numbers up for our massage therapy business is to examine where the clients you do have, have come from. Go over your client records again and do a quick search on what sources you have got them from.

Look at your records and you will find that perhaps out of 100 people that 10 have come from the dance club up the road, 15 have come from the office block in the city, and that the rest have come from signs and advertising. What you are trying to do is establish a pattern and find where the flow is coming from.

What will happen then is that you realise that not all client numbers have to drop in your massage business just because of unforeseen circumstances, sometimes the reason client numbers drop is because you have not followed up on marketing for a while, not contacted people in the community who have referred you business or created new, positive contacts who could be possible candidates for giving you business.

In any massage therapy business, writing down a basic graph or report for yourself will help you keep on top of any potential falling client numbers and hopefully put a stop to it before it happens.

Amy Roberts
www.massagetherapysuccess.com

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Massage Therapy Research is becoming a new part of the massage profession. There are new research studies coming out quite often. Research can help promote the massage profession and help the public to understand more about what it is that we do.

But research is confusing for the most part. The studies are hard to understand and knowing if it really is good research is a challenge for massage therapists. Learning about research methods and what to look for can help you decipher massage research and start referring to research as a way to promote your own practice.

The way to read a research study is to take a look at the massage protocol - how the massage was done and by who. Was it done by a licensed massage therapists or a nurse with no massage training? What is the ‘dose’? What was the length of the session, # of sessions, how much pressure was used and how often were the massages given? What massage techniques were used? What was the sample size- the number of participants? The more participants the better but most studies are usually small because of funding issues. Was there a control or comparison group? This will tell you if they got better because of the massage or would they just have gotten better anyway over time?

These are some of the things to start looking for. As more research becomes available there will hopefully be people helping us to analyze and interpret the results.

The thing about research is that there just isn’t enough of it so that we can say without a doubt “massage can help low back pain” or whatever ailment clients present with.

What it can do is bring us to a place where we can say something like ‘evidence is starting to show that massage can help alleviate low back pain”.

For more information see my site www.thebodyworker.com’s massage therapy research section.

Julio Onofrio
Founder of www.thebodyworker.com

Benefits

Newsletters are a great way to keep in touch with your clients. Sending a regular newsletter reminds people about your existence, and encourages them to call up for that long overdue treatment. Even better, a newsletter can also educate people about what conditions you treat. You’ll be amazed at how few of your clients know and understand the full scope of your work. As well as repeat bookings, a piece in your newsletter might result in a client booking for relief from headaches (as well as their usual relaxation massage); or they might recommend you to a friend with sciatica.

Planning your newsletter

So you’re convinced - a newsletter sounds like a great idea! Let’s take a few minutes to think about what you hope to achieve, and how you might do it.

• What are you hoping to achieve by sending a newsletter? Are you looking for repeat business, new clients, more referrals, or something else? The content of your newsletter will be guided by your aims. If you start out with clear goals then you can measure how well it is performing, and take steps to improve performance later if you need to.
• How often can you commit to creating and sending your newsletter? Monthly is probably ideal, but quarterly is more realistic for many of us.
• Do you have the time and writing ability to create educational pieces in each newsletter? (If not, there are other options - I’ll be covering these in my next post.)
• Do you want to include special offers and news of upcoming events etc?
• What format will you use? Do most of your clients have email, or would a traditional paper based newsletter be more appropriate? Do you have time to address and mail a traditional newsletter?
• Do you want to use photos, graphics or fancy formatting? For paper formats, you need to consider whether your word processing software can handle it, or will you need to buy a desktop publishing package? With an email newsletter, you’ll need to send what’s known as HTML format if you want to include anything other than just plain text.
• How much money do you want to spend? For a paper newsletter you need to consider the paper itself, ink (plus a printer of course!), envelopes and postage. Email newsletters are usually cheaper than paper formats depending on how many people you have subscribing. It’s also possible to send email newsletters for free using your own email program if you don’t mind a bare bones solution.

Summary

A newsletter can be a great marketing tool for your practice, as long as you have the time and money to invest in it. If you can’t commit to writing and sending a newsletter regularly, then a newsletter is probably not for you, but if you do have the time to put into it, then a newsletter is well worth the effort.

In future posts, I’ll discuss who to send to, working out what to write, as well as how to set up an email newsletter.

You might also want to check out the sample massage newsletter that Alexander discussed before.

Catherine Doyle

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Founder, Soothed - web design & online marketing for natural therapists
Editor, natural bloom - sharing the inside story on holistic health